Jessie's Christmas Carol
by GaliCat
Summary: Ten years after her partner's death, Jessie is about to end her prison term - and has nowhere left to go but downhill. But then James' ghost returns to give her a important message... of hope. Contains shipping, but no porn; blood, but no gore. Late, but who cares? Completed.
1. A Nightmare Before Christmas

James had been dead for ten years now. For all Jessie knew, his bones were still rotting under the pile of rocks that had ended him. Jessie probably would have made a yearly pilgrimage to the place where he'd given his own life for hers and Meowth's, except for one problem: she'd spent all but a few weeks of the ten years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement.

Well, not exactly solitary. There WAS that Weedle she'd found in her salad one morning midway through the second week of the first year, a Weedle that was, oddly enough, the same color green as a Caterpie (which had led to Jessie almost only finding _half_ a Weedle in her salad that morning, which wouldn't have ended well for either of them). Jessie wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl, but she'd named it James after her late partner anyway. Besides, if it turned out to be female, she could always rename it Jamie. James, not having any battle partners in solitary confinement, had never evolved, but it was as good a companion as any, even if it couldn't actually talk back to her. Jessie had told it everything about its namesake (while the guards weren't watching; she couldn't let them know she had a Pokemon in her cell, even a weak one, because they'd no doubt take it away from her), and it seemed to sympathize. "Weedlepie," it would chirp sadly, rubbing the non-spiky part of its forehead tenderly against Jessie's fingers. (Apparently being hatched lime green had given it a bit of an identity complex. Either that, or it was a hybrid, something Jessie had never seen before. Or maybe her former employers had genetically engineered it, then slipped it into her food to poison her before she could give away any Team Rocket secrets. If so, she thought, she really ought to thank them when she got out of this dump. _Thank_ them... with a chainsaw.)

It was Christmas Eve, which ironically was the day before she finally got let out of prison, and the ironic part was, as miserable as she was in there, Jessie was terrified to leave. She had nowhere to go, no family whatsoever – even Meowth, her only friend left in the world, had ditched her to rejoin the Twerps when he'd found out she was turning herself in to the Jennys because she couldn't bear to go on thieving without James by her side. Some loyalty! At least he'd agreed to take care of her Pokemon for her while she was doing time – which, ironically, meant that the Twerps now had HER Pokemon. It was almost as sickening as prison food, which incidentally was a total oxymoron.

I am NOT going to go to the Twerps, Jessie swore to herself as she climbed into her prison cot, prepared for another night of crying herself to sleep. I may have nothing else in the world, but I still have my dignity. Not that she had very much dignity left, considering her track record. But she intended to keep whatever shreds that remained. Suicide wasn't an option either, not with James the Weedlepie depending on her – and anyway, it would be stepping on the human James' grave after what he'd done to save her.

She'd do anything just to see his clueless face again, absolutely anything.

And then, suddenly, she did.

"GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

James the ten-years-deceased human being was standing right there in her cell, covered with what appeared to be a mass of bloody chains with a rusty pair of scissors and a... Santa hat?

"It's not what it looks like!" yelled the ghost that really shouldn't have even been there.

Jessie buried herself under the covers anyway. James was back from the grave, and he was after her! WHY? Hadn't he WANTED her alive and well? Was he vengeful over something, like how she'd broken away from Meowth and surrendered to the police? Or (and this seemed the most likely of all the options) had he simply decided he'd missed her so much that dang it, he was dragging her down to Hell with him whether she liked it or not?

"Jessie! I just want to talk to you!"

Jessie heard paper rustling, and taking a swift peek between the covers, realized that the chains weren't bloody after all. They weren't even heavy. They were red paper tape, and somehow James had managed to completely engulf himself in them to the point of looking like a bright crimson Tangela, which explained the sheepish expression on the poor man's face.

"I just thought your cell could use a little holiday cheer, and I had all this..." He gave her a stern look. "Don't ask. PLEASE. Let's just say that 'bureaucratic hell' turned out to be a bit more literal than I expected."

No one can give a stern look like a human ghost, but Jessie had to ask anyway. "Bureaucratic hell?"

"I mean, I would have come sooner and all, but do you have any idea how poorly the Underworld is organized? You wouldn't believe how many Dusknoir I've had to bribe to get myself here. And when they find out I've got nothing to pay them with, well, I guess I _could_ say that they can only kill me once, except I'm already dead. Do you realize what I've been through to come here?"

Jessie was thoroughly terrified. "You're not real, James. Please tell me you're not real!"

"What good would that do? You already know I'm a liar."

"No, you're not." Jessie glared at the tangle of red tape and ectoplasm. "You're a hallucination caused by my unbearable loneliness locked away in this hideous dungeon of -"

"You think this is bad?" James looked thoroughly disgusted. "You should see MY apartment. Fire, brimstone, not even any running water! And don't get me started on the sanitation!"

"So? You'll complain about anything."

James groaned. It had barely been three minutes, and already he and Jessie were fighting. Some things never changed, even in death. "Look, the only reason I was able to come back in the first place was because all I wanted was for YOU to be happy."

"Then don't scare me like that, you nimrod!"

"I'm a freaking GHOST! How was I supposed to NOT scare you? This is a maximum security cell; did you think I could just knock first and open the door?" Reaching through his overwhelming tangle of Christmas decorations, James put one hand on his Santa hat. "Look, the Dusknoir even gave me this stupid hat so I wouldn't have to show you that hideous head wound that I'm sure you remember – and maybe you'll be glad to know I actually DON'T remember getting it, being hit on the head and all. But that's not the point. Maybe you've given up on yourself, Jessie, but I haven't. I don't want you to wind up the way I did!"

"Just go to Hell, James!"

"I already did!"

"You know what I mean! SHUT UP!" Jessie stuck her head back under the covers and howled in misery. She'd finally cracked, she was certain of that much. James-the-ghost was an illusion, nothing more. "Just go away. You don't even exist. You're a hallucination caused by stress, guilt issues and solitary confinement." Now she _definitely_ wanted to die. "You can't possibly be real."

Pause. Jessie closed her eyes and willed this nightmare to end.

It didn't. "Okay, so if I'm just a figment of your imagination, then where's Meowth?"

Jessie's eyes snapped wide open again. Dang it, James was right! If this whole thing was really just her own guilt berating her, she'd have imagined Meowth right with them. Blasted supernatural phenomena! "Okay, okay already!" she snapped. "MAYBE you're real. But what does that have to do with me?"

James relaxed slightly. "I've come to show you that there's something better out there for you..."

And suddenly, neither of them were in the cell anymore.

_**Next Chapter: Christmas Past**_


	2. Ghost of Christmas Past

A/N: Sorry, I.C. 2014... I feel horrible for James as well (he's my very favorite Pokemon character, even if he's half evil), but you can't really be "good enough" for Heaven if you go around trying to kidnap people's pets. (Actually, no human can be "good enough" anyway, but there's not much point to discussing theology here, as this is a fanfic, not an ill-advised attempt at indoctrination.) But don't worry; I know something James doesn't regarding his true fate, and we'll find out about that pretty soon... heh heh heh.

27dayz – Thanks! This story almost didn't get written at all, but it all started with a dream I had that manifested itself into No Greater Love, the prequel to this story. You can read it if you like, but be forewarned – it's DARK. This story will end on a more positive note.

**Ten Years Earlier**

"Wake up, Jessie! Wake up!"

"Ergh... Go away, James! I may not NEED my beauty sleep, but I'd still like to-"

"Sleep in? Are you crazy? IT'S CHRISTMAS!"

"Why don't you just go die in a landslide, James? You're going to cause one if you keep yelling like that, you know!"

A few dozen feet above Jessie and James' mountainside camp, the "future" versions of Jessie and James, one of whom was currently made of ectoplasm, watched with profound embarrassment. Future Jessie turned to her ghostly companion. "Oh, I get it! You brought me here to make me feel even _more_ miserable, didn't you?"

Ghost James looked even more sheepish. "Hey, you really did say that. And I don't blame you, either."

"So? Every freaking Christmas you got me up before the sunrise, even when we didn't have any presents, which we usually didn't! And then I had to hear you whine about not getting anything from me, and-"

"-and you'd give me a present with both your fists at high velocity." James looked nostalgic. "Good times. In comparison, I mean." Suddenly noticing Jessie's attempt to scramble down the mountainside to her past self, he grabbed her by the arm. "There's no use trying to change fate, Jess. I've already tried that. Like it or not, that's still going to be my last day alive."

Jessie sniffled, watching her past self bicker with the still-living James. "Then how did you bring me here in the first place? Is this all just an illusion?"

"It is, and it isn't. It's kind of hard to explain, and coming from me, that's saying something."

"Arrogant much? Coming from you, EVERYTHING'S hard to explain. What, do you come by that naturally, or did you plant a pair of Oddish in your ears when you were young and stupid?"

Ghost James froze in shock. "How... how did you KNOW?"

Jessie, also shocked, made a mental note to file that one away for future reference, just in case she ever got another chance to make James miserable. She guiltily checked herself; after James' demise, she'd promised herself that if she ever had another chance to be a friend to someone, she wouldn't be the monster she'd been to James. And now he was back (temporarily, at least), and here she was thinking of how to abuse him again!

She decided to let the obvious Oddish-seed question slide for the moment. Quite frankly, she wasn't sure she even _wanted_ to know. "Okay, forget that. Am I going to get an answer, or do you still have leaves between your ears?"

"Just trust me."

"How can I trust you? You're DEAD!"

James looked hurt. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, maybe the fact that, by your own admittance, you wound up in Hell should at least make me a LITTLE bit worried about believing anything you say..."

This genuinely stopped James dead in his tracks (if you'll pardon the expression). He honestly had no idea how to answer that accusation. Come to think about it, as soon as he'd escaped from Hades, he'd had the strangest feeling that it had been maybe a tad TOO easy. Not that it had been easy at all, but James remembered enough from Sunday School lessons that once you were in Hell, you were in Hell for good; and he'd certainly learned firsthand in his ten-year "detention" that most of the "ghosts" that DID escape into the mortal realm were actually shapeshifting Pokemon or demons in disguise (a thought that thoroughly spooked James, as he'd fallen in love with a ghost girl once at Madien's Peak in Kanto; what if they had gotten serious? It didn't bear thinking about. James hoped that the Gastly in question didn't have his number, because that would just be wrong.)

So how had he _really_ escaped? Was all this a mistake? God didn't make mistakes... right?

Jessie was still talking (as she usually was). "Jameson Morgan Kojiro, if you weren't already a ghost, then so help me, I'd turn you into one right this second."

"If I wasn't a ghost, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"

Jessie was about to snap back with something very rude, but a wriggly green presence on her shoulder advised her otherwise. "Weedlepie," James the Second warned, gently nudging her cheek with its own.

"Okay, James, I'm trusting you against my better judgment. This had better be at least decent." She muttered under her breath, "I would say, 'good,' but nothing we ever did was good, so it would be a waste of my breath."

"We did a few good things. Remember the Legendary Birds incident?"

"Oh, don't mention it. Seriously. DON'T."

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Back at the camp, Past James presented Past Jessie with the very last thing she expected that morning: an actual present. Stolen, of course.

Jessie's delight narrowed into suspicion. "Tell me, James, is that a REAL Master Ball, or did you do another one of your little decoupage projects to pull one over on me?"

"I'm pretty sure it's real. Stole it right from some Professor Something-Or-Other. I was going to test it, but I figured you'd want to use it on Arceus."

"How thoughtful, James! You're an angel!"

"Not exactly – if I was an angel, we'd never be here together, would we?" James paused, trying to make his next statement sound casual. "So... what'd you get ME for Christmas?"

And suddenly he got Jessie's present right on his lips – straight from HER lips.

Struggling like a threatened Magikarp, James pulled away right sharpish. True, he was secretly crazy about Jessie, but after his painful experiences with Jessiebelle, he had a phobia of romantic relationships. (ANY romantic relationships.) Besides, Jessie had never really shown any indication that she viewed him as anything more than a hopeless, spineless, suck-up lackey – until now.

James felt like he had died and gone to Heaven, but something still felt wrong.

"C'mon, Luvdiscs!" Meowth called out suddenly, the first time he'd spoken all morning. "Arceus ain't gonna catch itself!"

And the three went off with happy hearts on a mission doomed to horrible failure.

**R & R! More coming soon (I hope)!**


	3. We Shouldn't Be Doing This

**UPDATE: The swearing has now been edited out.**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I appreciate your feedback. General Herbison, I have a sort spot for James as well, which made this story and its predecessor, No Greater Love, all the more hard to write. I get emotional when I'm writing about sad things.**

**27dayz: I'm interested in where they'll wind up as well... we'll just have to read on and see, won't we?**

Jessie and Meowth stared in shock at the bloodied form of James' corpse, crushed to death beneath an unforgiving rockslide. Neither of them could believe what they were seeing; neither of them wanted to believe it either. But there it was, carved out in the sharp, heavy stones now piled on the bloodied snow.

How had things gone this wrong this quickly?

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**A half-hour earlier...**

"We shouldn't be doing this, Jessie." James complained as he and his two companions maneuvered through the tunnels of Mt. Sinnoh.

Jessie rolled her eyes. "You say that every mission, James."

"Why shouldn't I?" James retorted. "It's always true."

"Well, YOU had a relatively decent upbringing, unlike the rest of us. YOU can't blame anybody but yourself."

James stiffened. "First off all – 'relatively decent'? Maybe I was over-privileged in the financial department, but that didn't mean I had a life! How would YOU like to always be told what to do, how to behave, what's 'proper' and what isn't-"

"Well den," Meowth put in to lighten the mood, "good ding youse joined up wid Jess here. Now _she's_ da one to tell ya what ta do!"

Meowth had a very good point, James noted, and he said so. "Exactly! Nothing's changed here – maybe I'm a few billion dollars poorer, but it's still rules, rules, rules – go along with this, don't do that, let's just fudge things a little here and there, you don't need morals where we're going-"

"Aren't morals rules?" Jessie put in.

James couldn't stop griping. "-and THEN you insinuate that all this is MY fault to begin with! Well, let me tell you something: maybe it IS all my fault!"

Jessie and Meowth stopped cold, sweatdrops rolling down their faces as they simultaneously thought to themselves, "Whoa, did he really just say THAT?"

"I've been thinking about it all through this wretched hike through the Crack of Doom, and you're absolutely right! I'M the one to blame when everything goes wrong, because I'M the one who went wrong to begin with!"

More silence, more sweatdrops.

"Um, Jimmy... whad'ja put in dat instant coffee dis mornin'?"

"I'm the LEADER of this wretched trio," James grumbled. "Nominally, at least. I'm the one that's _**supposed**_ to keep us three Rockets on the right path." He dramatically spread his arms wide, grimacing. "Except that for Rockets, there IS no right path! We know what we're doing is wrong, and we so much as admit it every time we speak our blasted motto, and what do we do about it? The same stinkin' thing we always do about it! NOTHING!"

Jessie had a profound urge to smack James upside the head with the very Master Ball he'd just given her that morning. "All right, Billy Graham, you've had your sermon. Now shut up and put up before you wake Arceus and get us all killed!"

"I am NOT shutting up, and I most certainly am NOT going to listen to YOU agai-"

And then Jessie actually DID smack James upside the head with that very Master Ball.

"I SAID SHUT UP!" she yelled, oblivious to the fact that she'd just split the Master Ball into two halves that were rolling into the farthest corners of the cavernous tunnel. "The cold's obviously getting to your head-" (Meowth muttered something about how the cold wasn't the only thing getting James' head at the moment) "-but when we get through with this mission, we'll be the toast of Team Rocket – and YOU want to quit because of one of your blasted little conscience attacks! Well, if that's the case, why don't you just hike back to your quiet little hometown and go marry that witch Jessiebelle while you're at it?"

"For starters? Because I left my Poke-belt back at camp, and if I go out in these caverns without a Pokemon, I'll be eaten alive!" James looked visibly nervous, although whether it was at the idea of hiking back to camp without Pokemon or the idea of marrying Jessiebelle was anyone's guess.

"Then take Meowth with you, you Rapidash. Just – whose side are you ON, anyway? I thought I could trust you!"

"GUISE, GUISE!" Meowth yelled at the top of his furry little lungs.

Jessie and James immediately stopped yelling at each other and froze in a tandem pose that revealed that Jessie had been about to strangle her partner. Meowth facepawed. "Yeesh, and you twose were wonderin' why we nevah get nuttin' done around heah!"

Jessie released her grip on James' neck, but kept her hateful glare locked on her reluctant partner in crime. James himself looked down at his own feet as he took several grateful breaths, unaware of how few indeed he had left coming to him.

"Now let's GO," said Jessie (though that wasn't quite a word-for-word quote; what she actually SAID was completely unprintable). "We **WILL** succeed in this mission, _OR DIE TRYING_." She cast an especially meaningful look at James. "Do I make myself _**clear?**_"

"Clear," James squeaked, though his heart was clearly elsewhere. Picking up the pace, he brought himself to the point of walking side-by-side with his teammates, being sure to leave Meowth between him and Jessie whenever possible.

And if Jessie hadn't known better, she could've sworn she heard her human partner murmur under his breath, "I'm sorry, God."

**Next Chapter: Hell Breaks Loose! (And, hopefully, we find out how James _really_ got there. Things may not be as they seem...)**


	4. Rock Tomb

They walked on in silence – Jessie, James, and Meowth. None of them dared to say a word, each out of fear of Arceus and fear of each other, until they finally reached the place where Arceus lay slumbering. Then, and only then, did James dare to speak his mind, and only in a whisper.

"I'm sorry, Jessie."

Jessie wasn't surprised; James apologized to her just about every mission, usually for flubbing the whole thing up. "Sorry for what? Be specific."

"I'm sorry I yelled at you like that."

"Oh, so next time you'll yell at me differently?" she shot back sarcastically. "Just hand me back that Master Ball you so kindly gave me. This will be a cinch."

"You broke that Master Ball over my head half an hour ago, remember?"

Jessie swore. "Okay, never mind that. Meowth, did you manage to find any Poke-balls using Pickup?"

"Roight here!" Meowth replied, handing Jessie an Ultra Ball and wisely not mentioning that his actual Ability was Technician.

"Got it," Jessie said, muscles tensing. This was it. This was going to be a little TOO easy. Just throw the ball, catch Arceus, and they all live happily ever after together.

Except that James was hanging off her arm, preventing her from throwing the Ultra Ball.

"Jameson Morgan Kojiro," Jessie said slowly and dangerously, "release my lovely arm this instant, or so help me, you will be wearing your insides on your outsides when I get through with you."

James let go reluctantly. "It's a bad idea, Jess. We could ALL be wearing our insides on our outsides once Arceus gets a hold of us."

"No, WE'LL get a hold of ARCEUS. Stop being such a sissy."

She threw her arm back, but James grabbed it again and insisted, "Seriously, Jess. I have a horrible feeling about this whole thing."

"What DID you put in that instant coffee this morning?" Jessie asked sarcastically. "It's just pre-mission jitters. James, I promise you on my honor that we're not going to die on mission or anything."

"What good is that? You're as bad a liar as I am."

Jessie gritted her teeth – she had no time to waste words with this moron; Arceus could wake up at any moment. Without hesitation, she hit James hard on the head with the elbow of the arm that wasn't holding the Ultra Ball (resulting in his own yelp of pain), then threw the ball itself almost in the same instant, swiftly capturing Arceus.

And as James crumpled in a kneeling position on the floor and bawled his eyes out (_sissy_, Jessie thought, although her opinion of him was fated to change drastically within the next hour), Arceus broke free from the ball.

And with him, all Hell broke loose as well.

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Even when watching the scene as her future self, Jessie still couldn't make head or tail out of the goings-on. This much she knew: James was right in front of her, almost between her and Arceus. He most certainly saw the first Giga Beam coming, but it didn't hit any of them; instead, it punched a hole clear through the cave wall, revealing – strangely enough – open sky and a flock of startled Starly. Arceus, still angry, now had better light to see by; the two humans and their Meowth were not as easily able to adapt to the change of lighting, and all three seemed frozen in place as Arceus readied another Giga Beam to wipe them all off the face of the mountain.

Then James took off like a man on fire – not towards safety, but towards his companions. "Jessie, MOVE!" he yelled as he violently shoved her and Meowth through the hole Arceus had made through the mountain. Time stood still as he crashed to the floor, breaking a few ribs as he watched his not-exactly-grateful friends fall straight down the mountainside yelling, "We're blasting off agaaaaaaain!"

And then the Giga Beam hit him, totally annihilating any hope he'd ever had of making it out of Mt. Sinnoh alive.

Jessie, the future Jessie, was unable to look away. She saw the avalanche resulting from the two Giga Beams as it swept James' body away. She heard bones snap, saw blood gush freely from his broken body, and she couldn't look away from it. Every second of that horrible moment was stamped permanently upon her psyche, a guilt that might never be eased.

James the ghost, hovering next to Future Jessie in whatever corner of space and time they were watching this from, winced at the horrible sight. "Don't take this the wrong way, Jessie, but I am SO glad I didn't have to live through that."

Oh, how Jessie wished he had a living body for her to slap.

* * *

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As the Jessie and Meowth of ten years ago made their way back up the mountain to search for James (they hadn't seen what happened), Jessie made some very rude remarks as to how once she got her hands on that man, she'd use them to remove his very manhood. (Meowth didn't think she'd find anything to remove.) And once she did that, she was going to snap every bone in his body, saving his sorry neck for last. And when she got done with THAT, she was going to...

...and then she saw the body.

"James, NO! Oh, please be alive! JAMES!"

It was far too late for him to answer.

**To Be Continued...**


	5. A Trampled Rose

**A/N: General Herbison... Yes, exactly! Seriously, I doubt Jessie really would have killed James if she had found him alive, and I don't think she even actually meant what she was saying at the time... and now she's being force-fed every last one of her words. It _would_ be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Poor James! And yes, it's very odd that they managed to find Arceus so easily. I chalk it up to whatever new technology they were given on their Unova mission; I'm sure there's a Poke-radar somewhere in that mess. (However, Jessie and Meowth seem to have forgotten their jetpacks... or maybe that's how they were able to survive the fall in the first place.)**

***wordlessly hands Mikaela the Cat a box of tissues***

**NevemTeve, I intend to keep writing, all right!**

**Sparkler, thanks for the PM. Don't worry, I have plans for where James goes from here... he's still got some interesting destiny left ahead of him. It has to do with why and how he managed to return. I'm impressed with how many people are enjoying a tragic fic like this one.**

Meowth knew something was wrong as soon as he heard Jessie's bawling over James. Running up the mountainside as fast as his furry little legs could carry him, he shouted, "What's wrong? Is James gonna be okay?"

Jessie couldn't keep the scorn out of her voice (not that she made any effort to try). "Sure, Meowth. Just as soon as we get that twelve-pound rock out of his head, I'm sure he'll be fine. NO, HE'S **NOT** GONNA BE OKAY, YOU MORON! _**HE'S DEAD!**_"

Meowth stopped cold in his tracks. Sure enough, James was laid out on the ground trapped halfway beneath a pile of fatally heavy rocks, one of which was indeed lodged in his cranium. For perhaps the first time in his life, the Scratch Cat Pokemon was completely lost for words.

_Dis can't be happenin'. Not ta Jimmy._

But it had happened, all right.

James was gone.

Still sobbing, Jessie kneeled down at James' head to tend to the fallen, trying and failing to dislodge the twelve-pound boulder from her late partner's skull. Meowth stopped her. "I don't dink we'll be wantin' a look in dere, Jess. Bad enough dat he had ta go like dis."

Jessie agreed, releasing the frozen-in-place stone. "WHY, Meowth? He pushed us out of the way so we would live. Even after what I said to him, he still... he... he still..."

She broke down sobbing. "Why, James? Why wasn't it me that died? After what I did to you..." She seemed to snap suddenly. "_I_ did this! **I DID THIS!**"

"Whad'ja mean?" Meowth asked, jumping back in alarm – he certainly didn't want to be in the middle of one of Jessie's moods. "It was Arceus, not you! Don't blame yaself!"

"Don't you see, Meowth? If I hadn't broken that Master Ball over his head, we would have safely caught Arceus and James would still be alive. If I hadn't insisted on catching Arceus anyway and knocked HIM down to do so, then he wouldn't have... wouldn't have..."

Her voice broke off. "I never had the chance to apologize... You were right, James," she admitted, addressing the corpse. "We shouldn't have done this. We shouldn't have done ANY of this."

She crumpled into a fetal position, her tears streaming down like rain. "_It's all my fault._"

There was nothing the two remaining Team Rocket members could do but lay their fallen partner to rest. Moving the body would have been impossible without causing another landslide (which would have resulted in the entire trio's mass burial), so Jessie and Meowth somberly stacked a cairn of rocks over the slain James, freezing them together with packed snow. They had the help of their Pokemon – Jessie's and the late James' – but it was still slow, sad work.

No one dared to speak while they were building James' grave. Not even Wobuffet.

Meowth was especially sorry for James' Pokemon. Jessie hadn't even wanted to let them see the body, but Meowth had known that they needed to know what had happened and why their Trainer wasn't going to be around anymore. Still, the heartbroken cries of Carnivine and Mime Jr. still rang in the cat Pokemon's ears, even though Mime Jr. had retreated into its Poke-ball out of grief and Carnivine was stoically helping the building effort.

_It ain't fair ta James,_ Meowth thought. _Da one time he almost changed for good... an' now he's Murkrow chow._

Finally the task was done. Jessie, Meowth, and the other Pokemon stared wordlessly at the piled of rocks that obscured James' body from the elements. In her hands, Jessie held James' artificial rose that he'd always carried around, now with a bent and broken stem, stains of blood, and missing petals. She wondered if James would have wanted it lain by his tombstone, or if she should keep it in his memory and find a more perfect flower to honor his sacrifice with.

It didn't matter to her. Nothing mattered anymore.

"_It's all my fault."_

_Like a rose... trampled on the ground..._

_You took the fall..._

_And thought of me..._

_Above all..._

lyrics from the song _Above All_ by... Casting Crowns, I believe? Anyway, they just seemed to fit.


	6. Because I Love You

**A/N: Thanks for all the positive reviews, guys. It means a lot to me, because this story is hard to write. I just love James too much to stand seeing him put through all this! (And Jessie, too, but in all seriousness, she did have _something_ coming to her. Too bad that "something" wound up being the death of her best friend.) As requested, here is the next chapter.**

The future Jessie couldn't control herself. She buried her head in Ghost James' immaterial shoulders, crying her eyes out. It was just too much – too many memories, flooding her mind like a waterfall of tears and blood.

"Oh, why did you do it, James? WHY?"

James couldn't speak. It was as if everything in the world had vanished completely and it was just him and Jessie, frozen in time and space. When he finally spoke, it was as softly as an angel's wing.

"Because I love you, Jessie."

He couldn't believe he'd said it to her face, knowing she could hear him.

Jessie couldn't believe it either. She froze rigidly, staring James in the eye, completely at shock. "You're not serious."

"I am." James sheepishly looked downward at something that Jessie couldn't see but was evidently extremely interesting; at least interesting enough that he wasn't looking at **her**. "I've always loved you, Jess. Honest to Ho-Oh."

Jessie still couldn't believe it. – "You _can't_ be serious."

James almost wished he was back with the Dusknoir. "What do you mean, I can't be serious?" he fumed, himself disbelieving Jessie. "I **died** for you – isn't that enough to prove it? What more do you want from me?"

"I want you to make sense, James! Why would y_ou_ love ME? _No one_ loves _ME__!_ I'm mean and nasty and evil and... and... oh, James, I'm not _worth_ dying for!"

James looked her straight in the eyes, both angrily and compassionately. And then he said the five sweetest words Jessie had ever heard.

"You're worth it to me."

She nearly had a heart attack. – It was all too wonderful for comprehension, yet too horrible for words, all at once. "But you're GONE!" Jessie sobbed. "Ten years dead and gone! You're just a dream, I know it; you've got to be. Soon I'll wake up and you'll disappear forever. I can't lose you again! _I_ _love_ _you_ _too,_ _James!_"

She buried her head in his shoulders again, nearly squeezing poor Ghost James into two literal halves. But James' thoughts were suddenly elsewhere. He went stiff with shock, realizing what he ought to have known all along, but had been far too traumatized by his experiences in the Pit to even guess at.

He remembered everything now.

"Jessie, I didn't JUST go to Hell," he stammered, finally finding his voice. "I couldn't remember at first – it was being _there_ that burned away my memories – but it wasn't the way I thought it was when I first came here. I know why they let me out of there. I know how I was able to escape."

Jessie's eyes grew wide. Maybe there was hope of James returning from the dead for good! "How? WHY?" she blurted. "You mean you can stay! Oh, please stay with me, James! Never leave me behind again!"

James smiled. She DID love him the way he loved her! "I'm sorry, Jess. I can't. But at least I know for sure what happened to me."

He paused. "You might not believe this either, but I went to Hell for **you**."

**DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN... TO BE CONTINUED...**


	7. Heaven and Hell

A/N: Lv100magikarp, I have a few plans on where James goes from here... plans I've hinted at elsewhere in my fan fiction... but I don't know if anyone will guess it; it's pretty obscure. But James has a bit more destiny ahead of him. It might not be a HUMAN destiny, but it's going to be destiny all right.

"You WHAT?"

James looked back down at whatever that invisible thing was by his feet that was more interesting than Jessie. "I _was_ forgiven, Jessie. I could've gone to Heaven and stayed there. But if I had..."

"You thought you'd never see me again forever?" Jessie finished. "I'm touched... and insulted." She couldn't stay mad at James NOW, not after he'd been through Hell for her, literally. But she couldn't help but feel a little ticked off. "Go on."

James nodded. "The only road back was through the one place I couldn't stay, because I didn't belong there in the first place. True, it was rather... _trippy_... getting through security," James went on, motioning to his red paper chains, "but for you, I think it was worth it."

Jessie glomped James right then and there (wherever _then_ and _there_ was; she wasn't sure if she was in the past, the present, or wherever), planting a passionate kiss on his lips, and then between them.

This was clearly the last thing James had expected OR wanted. Gagging on Jessie's tongue, he managed to pull himself away before things got even MORE serious, as he feared they just might if he stayed with her a moment longer. "Gahh! I'm DEAD, remember? That's totally gross!"

Jessie pulled back. "Sorry," she muttered sheepishly. "After ten years without you, I forgot how you react to displays of affection."

James accepted her apology, then quietly thanked the Lord he'd died a virgin. Sure, he loved Jessie like he loved himself (and more), but after Jessiebelle, he'd always found romantic behaviors a bit off-putting. Heaven only knew what would have happened if he and Jessie had actually married. It would have made for one heck of an awkward honeymoon.

"So when do I get to see the ghost of Christmas present?" Jessie asked semi-teasingly.

"Um, actually... I have to go now," James admitted. "I've long overstayed my welcome. Most humans aren't allowed to linger as long as I have, and quite frankly, after what I've been through, I need a vacation!" James let out a sigh of relief. "Just promise me one thing."

"What?" asked Jessie, hoping that this wasn't going to be something she'd regret.

"Promise me you'll give up this whole villain thing," James pleaded. "There's nothing in it for you. And anyway, you'd only wind up the way I wound up, but permanently. There's a greater destiny out there for you."

"James, I don't want any destiny without you in it!"

"I'll wait for you, Jessie. But for now, you have to let go. Your prince is waiting for you, Jess, and I can't get in the way of that." He sighed. "I'm sorry, but I really can't stay any longer. The Dusknoir are going to show up at any moment."

And then he kissed her back. Passionately.

The whole world seemed to fade away at that moment. At first Jessie just thought that it was the psychological effects of the kiss, but then she realized she was fading back into her jail cell. James the Weedlepie was chirping loudly, trying to get her attention, but Jessie was lost in a million thoughts. James' red paper chains, now separate from their departed creator, lay in a tangle at her feet, and his Santa hat was in her hands, smelling something of sulfur. The Weedlepie scurried over to it and nudged it with its head, somewhat curious.

"Jessica?" asked a voice – a Jenny, from the sound of it. Jessie jerked her head up and quickly concealed Weedlepie under the Santa hat, hoping it wouldn't be found.

The Jenny unlocked the door to Jessie's max-security cell. "Your sentence has been served, so – hay, where the heck did you get those decorations, and why do they smell like they've been on fire?"

Jessie merely smiled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."


	8. Christmas Yet To Come

**FINALLY, the long-awaited final chapter! All this time I've spent wondering about it, and now it's just come straight out of my head within a little more than an hour.**

Jessie's rehabilitation into society went better than one might respect. She'd learned humility from James' demise, then hope from his return and deliverance. She went through life one step at a time, thanking her God for each new day, knowing each one could well be her last.

And she was all right with that. She knew who's be waiting for her on the other side.

With Team Rocket long behind her, she followed her dreams of becoming a Pokemon coordinator, using both James' Pokemon and her own. To get those Pokemon back, of course, she'd reconnected with Meowth, who wasn't hard to find – he was still with Ash's party, and had actually been one of the Pokemon Ash had used to win the nationwide championships, which naturally gave them both swelled heads. Jessie had never though she'd be that happy to see those twerps in her entire life, even if their first encounter in ten years had almost ended with a reflexive Thunder Shock from a certain yellow rat that was STILL sitting on Ash's shoulder, but was now wearing his old hat (Ash had obviously outgrown it).

Jessie had been surprised at how much Ash had grown up in ten years. No longer the quick-tempered, impulsive, thoughtless ten-year-old he'd been when she'd first tried to steal his Pikachu, he was now a calm, thoughtful, mature young man with an impressive mastery of fighting strategy. He'd still kept all his compassion for his friends and his Pokemon, of course, and it showed. Much to Jessie's surprise, Ash had even managed to evolve Meowth into a Persian, although neither one of them had even expected it – it had actually happened mid-battle in the final championships, allowing "Poizian" to totally dominate the opponent's Raichu.

Ash still had the entire video on tape, and Meowth (he still insisted on being called Meowth) had watched it nearly every single day afterward. Being a talking Pokemon, he'd even been able to answer interviewers after the win, although he'd spent most of that time trying to stay upright on his newly evolved legs and falling down on top of the microphone, and they could barely understand a word he said because his accent had grown even more atrocious.

Being the Champion, Ash naturally got a lot of requests from young women (and ever young men) to start a romantic relationship, but Ash was happier flying solo as a single. He was more married to training Pokemon than to anything else, and even being the Champion wasn't enough – he was going to be the very BEST Champion, like NO ONE ever was.

Jessie reveled in the association. "I knew him when he was young," she'd say to the other coordinators. Unfortunately, she usually had to admit that the reason she'd known him was that she'd tried to steal his Pikachu, which led to some awkward stares. Some of the coordinators had heard of the trio's exploits, though, and asked more questions, some of which led to awkward stares from Jessie herself.

But the question they always asked, the question that broke Jessie's heart, was the most obvious question of all:

"Where's James?"

Never mind that she knew (or was reasonably sure she knew, anyway) that he was happy now, he was out of the woods, he was safe and (dare she say it?) ALIVE up there. She still missed him earnestly, and even now woke up some mornings expecting to hear him complain about how rocky the ground was under his sleeping bag, only to remember that there was no rocky ground, there was no sleeping bag, and worst of all, there was no James (except for the shiny Beedrill that had evolved from the "Weedlepie" she'd found in prison so many years ago).

Sometimes, when that happened, she just cried herself back to sleep, refusing to get back up out of bed again.

Meowth, now being the size of a human himself, was very effective in getting her out of bed again; he didn't even have to say anything, just show off his claws and teeth. Jessie would have promised to strangle that Persian, but she'd learned the hardest way to never wish death on another. The wish, she knew, could come true without warning at any moment, so she'd vowed to herself to never wish that wish ever again, just as she'd vowed to never again wish to love another, no matter what James' ghost had said about her finding her Prince Charming.

Love was dead and buried. She'd seen it die beneath a pile of heartless, unfeeling mountain stones.

And then HE came back into her life.

HE might not have been James per se, but she'd still remembered HIM with strangely fond memories. Even though they'd technically been enemies, he and his friends had always been willing to help her and HER friends (another memory of when James was with her; it still stung her heart). He'd even offered her his sleeping bag once, without even making any lewd remarks about how they could share it (which certain other boys Jessie had dated would have done without any hesitation at all, thus inviting themselves to a whack on the head with whatever large, blunt object happened to be near enough for her to reach).

It had been strange, thinking of them as a couple now; neither one of them had ever shown any previous attraction to each other, even when HE was trying desperately to catch the attention of every other girl in the region. But somehow, it didn't seem so strange now. Two lonely hearts that had found love and lost it were bound to find each other.

Maybe James had arranged it himself; at any rate, Jessie and Brock were a match made in Heaven.

The wedding was perhaps a little TOO extravagant, but it was worth it to watch Misty catch the wedding bouquet and promptly chase Ash Ketchum around the hall with love in her eyes; it seemed that SOME things, even if they'd changed over the years, were still young at heart. Naturally, with Ash being the champion and Misty being a Gym Leader (her three older sisters had retired from battling to take on a swimsuit modeling gig for a famous fashion design company), this made a lot of headlines, making things rather awkward for the newlyweds; they had to change their honeymoon plans drastically to avoid the media. In the end, however, things died down; though Misty had had to solemnly promise Ash that she would never, EVER, with God as her witness, put him on the front page of the tabloids ever again.

So things settled down – or sped up, depending on how you looked at it. Sure, there were fights among the newlyweds (mainly started by Jessie, naturally), but over time, she grew to respect Brock's mature manner and lucid resolutions. With Brock from a large family, and Jessie's own lonely childhood, naturally they had a lot of kids – and I don't need to tell you what Jessie named their oldest son. As for Jessie's coordinating, she might not have become the top coordinator as she'd dreamed, but she'd still stood out with her own unique style, and she won a hefty collection of ribbons. Her most treasured ribbon, of course, was the one James had won for her, and Brock respected that; he knew that while Jessie did indeed love him dearly, nothing could ever truly replace James' role in her life.

But that role was no longer needed; James had done everything that he could. It was the time for a new chapter in Jessie's life story, a chapter that would go on and on until the next one arrived, and then the next one, and the next one, and perhaps then, the conclusion. Jessie knew from what James had said to her in his last moments with her that he wouldn't get jealous of Brock when they arrived in the afterlife; he'd spoken his blessing on the relationship, so all was well. Jessie may have questioned James' judgment before, but she had to admit that he'd been on to something.

Privately, she still wondered what life would have been like if James lived, if they had never gone on that ill-fated mission, if they had continued in evil and perfidy? Perhaps all three of them would have gone to Hell. Perhaps James really had died so she and Meowth could really live again.

Perhaps God HAD blessed them, every single one.

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>THE END<p><p>

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**And I can probably guess what you're thinking now: "But what about James?" Well, he's still got some story left to him, but I can't quite tell you here, as it would be a spoiler for ANOTHER of my stories, which features this story's James as a character. Which story is it? I'm afraid I can't tell you, as that in itself is a spoiler. (I hate myself for leading you on like this, but I honestly can't reveal it.) So, if you liked this story, read my other stories – you never know who will show up in them! God bless you guys, and thanks for reading!**


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